Joyeaux Noel 2011
by TWSythar
Summary: Christmas requests from our readers this year, concerning the characters of Capitan Scaramouche!
1. A Dangerous Gift of Eloquence

**By TW for HisPrincessHope – a story about Enjolras' first crush. While our Augustin has never been set upon by heady Eros, he was not exempt from that hero-worship that colors every man's life. As we shall see, there was one august personage for whom he cultivated in his earliest youth a most solemn and heartfelt devotion – a devotion which has never yet waned, despite his discovery of other great men better remembered by fickle Historia. Mark how it all came to pass...**

At fourteen years old, Augustin Enjolras possessed already the beauty of a woman, the intellect of a sage, the stubbornness of a mule - and the temperament of an apostate undertaking his penance. What heresy could such a child have committed, to class himself among those failed martyrs of the ancient Christians? How could a boy who knew so little of life have faced and failed such a challenge already? The judgment was entirely of his own making, for he had profaned his greatest hero. In a sentence: to save himself, he had betrayed the ideals taught him by OMNES OMNIBUS.

And who was Omnes Omnibus? The stuff of which a child's dreams are made, if that child is keen enough to appreciate him. A mouthpiece, a voice only: ALL FOR ALL. A man who had so lost himself in service to a higher call that even his name was no longer his own. As a boy Augustin constantly escaped the uncle's house where he spent his summers and lived upon the quays of Nantes, dreaming that his hero might one day reappear to rally the people of the city. Such courage! Such oratory! It was for his sake that Augustin studied rhetoric with such passion, for although he was quite capable of learning anything he chose, he only studied that which he found to be of benefit.

This devotion which was to be so enduring was born of a most singular document: the _Confessions_ of one Moreau, baptized André-Louis. An unsuspecting visitor had left them much too near to petit Augustin's eye-level, and it was stolen by the unrepentant child before his parents could discover and snatch it away. The romance and adventure of the latter chapters interested him little, but at the beginning of the book lay the moving tale of Omnes Omnibus. For a long time he completely ignored everything which followed the hasty flight into the Breton countryside, reading over and over the brief account of the death of Philippe de Vilmorin and the two inflammatory speeches of Rennes and Nantes. What he learned from these _Confessions_ was supplemented by his continual search for those willing to recall the days before the Revolution.

"And what of Omnes Omnibus?" he would whisper, once he was confident that his interest would not be discovered to his father. "Can you tell me anything of – of _him_?" And occasionally, they could – but more often he was simply sent back to the streets, where he would watch the people pass by, and the boats on the river, and the poor beggars who sang and mocked the rich men who were blind to their plight. _What would his hero do?_ Augustin would wonder as he walked along the quays and saw riches and misery so close together. _Why, Omnes Omnibus would never stand for this, and neither should he!_ (As he had only but skimmed the majority of Moreau, he labored for some time under the false impression that his redemption had been completed by those speeches in Vilmorin's name, and that he had remained an apostle of Liberty to the end of his days.) Though he was as yet unschooled in republicanism, he began then to turn to the people he saw in the streets, and to converse with them as he imagined Omnes Omnibus might – concerned, confident, and entirely self-effacing. He played at being the great rhetorician as other boys play at soldiers, policemen, assassins. How he escaped trouble, a beautiful and trusting child alone in the city, must be mostly credited to the fondness that many of the fishwives developed for him. Augustin's recaptures grew fewer and fewer as he learned to escape and to disguise himself, and in between them he developed a love for roaming the city and a profound respect for the common people, both of which were to follow him into his adulthood. But we pass out of our tale; let us return.

The summer that Augustin was thirteen years old, he had the bad fortune to be given a set of Desmoulins' pamphlets by a bookseller friend with whom he had begun to discuss anti-royalism the summer before. The book was noticed, searched for, and found almost immediately – and Moreau's _Confessions_ with it. The boy was called before his uncle.

"What is the meaning of this devilry?" hissed that good royalist, tossing the offending revolutionary compendium at the boy's feet. "You dare to bring this trash under my roof?"

Augustin looked down at the book coolly – he had not even had the chance yet to open it, but it came highly recommended. "I don't know that it's all as bad as that sir."

His uncle tore off a glove and slapped Augustin across the cheek with the insult of a bare palm. The child Enjolras turned red under the blow, but did not flinch. "Then you are accursedly ignorant! You are an Enjolras, on your mother's side you are a du Maine. We have stood beside the throne since the days of the Valois, and it is your duty to defend it! Your blood compels you to act honorably and with dignity and respect towards your venerable ancestors and the institution of the peerage of France. Has no one taught you these things?"

The boy's thoughts skimmed over all he had seen of his family's behavior; and besides, in truth they were only among the most minor of the nobility, whether his uncle liked to admit it or not. "I have heard it all my life, but I have never seen it practiced."

M. du Maine flushed in turn, in anger. "Your forefathers, insolent enfant, have fought and died in the service of the kings of France as long as there has been one to serve. Your mother won't tell you this, but your own grandfather lost his life to the Terror. It was the words lying at your ungrateful feet that killed him, but he died with honor and loyalty to his rightful king!"

Augustin quivered a little and paused in shock. Finally he replied quietly, "You're right. I was never told this." His gaze flickered uneasily between his uncle's eyes and the book on the floor. As terrible as it was that his grandfather should have been killed, no matter his politics...but he could not finish his thought.

"Well, it's about time you were. You are a young man now and you ought to know." As though he had read his nephew's mind, he pulled from his desk now none other than the _Confessions_. "Since you have brought us to that most unpleasant business, I don't suppose you can explain this drivel, either?"

Augustin's heart nearly stopped and his eyes flew wide. Already weakened, he stood speechless and helpless before this abuse of his beloved hero.

"Augustin, I demand an explanation."

Augustin swallowed around a dry mouth and stiffened his neck. "It – is not drivel, sir. The Moreau is simply an old favorite of mine –"

"It's clear that you were never properly brought up." M. du Maine silenced the boy by raising his hand. "I regret having neglected it so long, but I thought your father had enough sense to instill this in you himself. I will write immediately and tell him what has happened here."

"No!" Augustin leaped forward and clung onto the edge of the desk by his fingertips. "Please, no...Oncle..." The years of his life flashed before his eyes. If his father should find out – oh, he would kill him. He was disengaged enough from his son's education to think that Augustin was a model child and a good monarchist, but if he were disillusioned...if that book had provoked such reaction from his uncle, to be caught with it by his _father_... oh, it would be terrible. He would never be allowed to go to Nantes again or to go out in the streets alone again – he would never have another uncensored book, another liberal tutor, or another moment of his life to himself...and of course there would be the beating. Not that he cared about the beating, but – it was still something. "Please don't tell him, Oncle! I'll be good from now on. I swear it to you."

His uncle turned a glare on him as he began to write out the letter to his brother-in-law. "You don't want me to tell him because you're afraid he'll punish you. Augustin, you are old enough to know that those who do wrong must receive their just punishment so they can atone and learn their lesson."

The specter of his father's anger loomed before him, utterly blinding the boy. "I – have done wrong. I know I have. I agree with you, those things are – are foolishness. I shouldn't be reading them. But please don't tell him."

As angry as he was that Augustin had betrayed him like this, the elder man had a soft spot for the boy – so like his dear mother. His humility _was_ gratifying. And he did show a willingness to learn and return to his proper path. Boys would be boys sometimes, wouldn't they? Besides, the look in Augustin's eyes was strangely compelling.

Yes. Properly trained that boy would go far – he simply had to be trained first.

M. du Maine calmly sealed up the letter he had written and placed it on the mantelpiece of his study. "Do you see this, Augustin? It's a letter for your father, explaining everything. If you change your ways and apply yourself properly this summer, at the end of August I'll call you in and burn it. He need never know. But at the first sign of trouble, or of bad sentiment from you, I'll mail it right away. Do you understand?"

Augustin shook a little and considered his options. It was a cowardly thing to do - a terrible, cowardly thing to do, and he shouldn't take that deal. He should take his punishment as a man, and stand strong. However, as he stood trembling now before his uncle as a rebellious boy who hadn't even grown past one and a half meters yet, he felt nothing at all like a man. He had no power here; he could do nothing. Reluctantly, hating himself for it, he nodded his assent.

"Good," the man said, and patted his shoulder. "Give me those books, now. You won't want them." The petit Enjolras threw them down on the desk and ran from the room before he could be seen to cry.

The remainder of the summer, in which he found himself rebuffed from wandering out-of-doors again and again and forced into attending business meetings with increasing regularity, was torture to him. During the year that followed, he swore with a vengeance that he must never again betray truth or justice to protect himself. He turned to his rhetoric, to his history and law, and to his republican authors with a passion he had never felt before, and when his height shot up shortly after his fourteenth birthday that January, he felt he was becoming someone truly to be reckoned with. While his ideology remained in its infancy, the groundwork was undeniably there. This one incident, the promise he had made against his principles, took root in his mind and grew almost precisely to the size of his heart. It was a little thing and he ought to have forgiven himself for something he had done when he was only a child, perhaps; but in a way, he never ceased to be a child at all, for he had no cynicism or pessimism in his heart, and no room in his vision for the shades of grey between purest good and purest evil. He hated himself now, but in rejecting himself he did away with everything which might have held him back. He was not a Christian, but he grew to cherish that verse which has stymied so many others, _He who wishes to save his life must lose it._ Upon that hope of martyrdom, he built much of his strength.

The rest of his life is a well-known story, and we shall not repeat it here; but that is the account of the first devotion Augustin Enjolras held in his heart, and how it consumed him so entirely that he was never the same after.


	2. Un Flambeau, jeanette, Isabelle

**A/N: For Mam'zelle Combeferre from TW, a story of how the Amis de l'ABC all went caroling together. It's set in Christmas 1829, about one month before the start of Capitan Scaramouche. Also included, as requested, are one flask of brandy (as fine as it comes), one overly long scarf (purple and orange), and one set of hair ribbons (red and green). Unlike the more serious Enjolras pieces this year, this one is intended to be **_**quite**_** silly, and it's not consistent with CS canon or really much of anything else; it may be considered more as "fanfic of our own fanfic". **

**Apologies for the extreme lateness of this and also the next main chapter! I **_**hate**_** giving constant excuses, but, quite frankly, I've been stretched so thin with school and meetings and post-operative recovery (thank God, not mine - my boyfriend, ever the Daniel to my Maurice, is a good man with bad luck and worse sinuses) that I have not **_**slept**_** properly in weeks, let alone been able to write coherently. Thank you for the lovely reviews that help me not pull out what's left of my hair. You wonderful readers mean so much to me. –Love, TW.**

"_Que l'on chante qu'on s'apprête! Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la! Sonnez pipeaux et trompettes! Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!_"

Feuilly looked out of his door in surprise – and then looked down. Aha. The noisy carol with which he had been greeted upon opening the door was coming from two small boys at his doorstep, grinning up at him as they belted out their _fa-la-la_s with gusto, if little tunefulness.

"_Car c'est la joie qu'on apporte! Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la!_ _Ouvrez donc grandes vos portes!  
>Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!<em>" The taller of the two entrepreneurs smiled winningly and stuck out his palm. "First verse's for free, sir, but if you want the rest, it'll cost a sou!"

Feuilly laughed and looked over the rags on their feet. "For you, I'll see if I can find one. What's your name, p'tit?"

He puffed out his chest. "I'm Gavroche –" Gavroche patted the little one on the shoulder – "an' this is Navet."

"Cute." Feuilly rifled his pockets, and his heart sunk when he remembered that he'd just paid the rent and was literally broke until his pay came in the next day. "Sorry boys, but I haven't got a sou right now to give you."

Gavroche frowned like an old man. "Now, now, that i'n't right a-tall." Suddenly his face brightened up. "But Mother Whats-her-name gave us a sou a'ready, you can have that'un!"

"Oh no, keep it, keep it." Feuilly smiled at them. "D'you two mind a bit of a walk, though? Because I can find you someone who has got quite a few." They shook their little heads furiously. "Good, then, let me get my coat! Listen, do you know _Adeste, fideles_...? No? I'll teach you on the way..."

"_À d'est, l'infidèl est laité, triomphant est béni, est béni, est in Be-ethlehem!_" a child's voice rang out from around the corner. Luc Courfeyrac perked up his ears and turned down the next side street in pursuit of the clever little punner. Dominic could stand the wait!

However, he was immediately distracted from his quest by the sight of one of his fellow-ABCs. "Hi, Feuilly! Where're you off to?"

Feuilly turned around and waved back. "We were just going to visit you!"

"We?" Courfeyrac bounded up and promptly attached himself to the giggling boys who were standing just behind Feuilly and who, he realized, were the source of the singing. "Oh, these fellows? Are they yours? They're fantastic! Heard them singing all the way down the street! Very funny, you two, very funny!"

"They showed up at my door trying to sing carols for money," Feuilly said, grinning. "They're called Gavroche and Navet. I really ought to have tried teaching them something in plain French, they just can't get the words right...well, I thought you might humor them."

"Humor them? Oh, of course, they're brilliant! But we _must_ take them to Dom's - that's where I was just headed." Courfeyrac ruffled the boys' hair and began unlooping the scarf from around his own neck. "I'm _surprised _at you, Feuilly, taking little children out in the cold without anything to wear!"

"That's your job as well, I'm afraid...good God, Courfeyrac, how long does that scarf go _on_?"

"Oh, about eighteen or nineteen feet. Aunt Maria got a little carried away," Courfeyrac said blithely as he began to wrap the scarf around one and then the other. "Hi, stop laughing and hold still, you two!" He finally came to the scarf's end and handed it to Navet, the little one. "I'll pay you kids when we get to my ami Dominic's, how's that? He'll think you're great."

"Are we going to walk over _all_ of Paris?" Navet piped up.

"Hush, môme, you're warm, i'n't you?" Gavroche said as they began waddling off after Feuilly and Courfeyrac, hobbled considerably by the ten feet of scarf each small child had around his upper body...

"_Saint Joseph de son chapeau Lui fit un berceau,_" Jehan sang happily to himself as he meandered toward Dominic Bahorel's, giggling a bit at the thought of the Divine Infant being laid to sleep in Saint Joseph's hat. The song had always amused and inspired him, and besides, it was so _beautifully_ nonsensical, the whole Incarnation business, wasn't it? God become man for man's sake, the Great Sacrificer-Priest sacrificed on his own altar, and it had all started with a very small and ordinary baby with no home to be born in. Now, if that wasn't a sign from God –

"_Natte unité, terre régné angelot-ment!_"

"All right, now you're doing it on purpose."

"I think they are. Isn't it _hilarious_, though? Look, it's Prouvaire! Hullo, Prouvaire!"

Jehan whirled around to see Feuilly, Courfeyrac, and a pair of short, garishly-colored bundles-on-legs coming up behind him. "Courfeyrac! Feuilly! Merry Christmas! Oh, what _are_ you two up to now?"

"Attempting to teach these poor deprived children some proper hymns," Feuilly said with one of his wait-Feuilly-so-are-you-or-aren't-you-joking-now? smiles.

"We're having _fun_, that's what we're doing, Feuilly," Courfeyrac laughed. "Merry Christmas to you too, Jehan! Meet Gavroche and Navet, songsmith prodigies _extraordinaires_."

"Oh, is that who's under the scarf?" Prouvaire poked aside one of the layers of blindingly purple-and-orange knitting with his walking stick to get a better look.

"Morning, m'sieur!" the little ones chorused.

"Oh, they are _charming,_" he beamed. "Are you taking them to Bahorel's?"

"_Mais oui!_ Come with us and round out our little group, why don't you?" Courfeyrac said.

"It so happens I was already on my way there, lucky you! Come along, _enfants_. Let's try something a little easier on your ears. Repeat after me, _C'est le jour de la Noël que Jésus est né_…"

"_...béni thêatre doré, mousse! Béni thêatre doré, mousse! Béni thêatre doré, mo-ousse, omnibus!_"

Bahorel laughed heartily at this end to the bastardization of _Adeste Fideles_, and ushered in the little company on his doorstep. "That's dam'd brilliant, that is. Worth at least a little buche de Noel, don't you think?"

Luc squealed like a little girl when he saw the Yule-log cake out on the table. "Buche de Noel a week early! Oh you _pig_!"

"Well, I'm not coming back to Paris until after the New Year, so it was now or never." Dominic said with a sigh. "My mother's one weakness - she _cannot_ bake a proper genoise. It's always just a bit too chewy."

"A true hardship, I'm sure," Feuilly said drily over the excited squeals of "_Gateau!_" coming from near the floor as he struggled to free the boys from their blinding, scarfy prison.

"After the _New Year_?" Courfeyrac wailed, forgetting the cake for a moment. "Why, that's ages and ages! When do you leave? You're lucky I was planning to give you your gift early as a surprise!"

"I'm leaving tomorrow. Enjoy me while you can." Dominic cut off a couple of pieces for the little ones and passed them down.

"Well _here_ then. Merry Christmas, Bahorel." Lucien produced a package from inside his coat and swapped it for a piece of the cake.

"Merry Christmas to you too, Courfeyrac, and yours is on the mantel once you've finished stuffing your face. Jehan, Feuilly, yours too."

"You didn't have to," Feuilly protested.

"Nonsense!" he said affably. "So what if I didn't! It's my own money – well, Luc's money that I won from him fair and square – and I'll spend it however I like."

"Still, you really shouldn't have," Feuilly said, but he was smiling as he glanced over the first pages of his new book. There y'go, ami – a history on the Polish resistance to foreign rule. Luc's idea.

"_Hair_ ribbons!" Jehan's already cheerful face lit up and he promptly dropped the paper in order to pull back his hair and tie it up with the new set of red and green. "Oh, and they're so festive! They're perfect, simply perfect, I love them, Bahorel – oh, what have you got there?"

Dominic tossed him the flask he'd just unwrapped. "Lucien's just given this to me to remember him by while I'm gone."

"And you're an ungrateful boy for making me have to remind you. I'm sure you'll be so happy out in the country without me."

One of the children, having finished his cake, interrupted Luc with a tug on his coat. "M'sieur, don't forget you promised a sou."

Dom looked at him, scandalized. "Only a sou? You can't be thinking of paying so little for such brilliance? A franc, Luc, at least!"

Courfeyrac patted the astonished children on their heads. "I'll go one better, don't worry. A franc now, and another if they'd like to go show off to th'Gemini too."

Bahorel handed down more cake, grinning at the gleeful babbling that had broken out around the level of his waist. "Good! And here's my contribution. Eat up, enfants."

"We ought to get them something decent to wear, Bahorel," Jehan said, frowning over the old and now-sticky clothes the boys had on. "At least some shoes – I'll buy shoes for them if we just stop on the way."

"That, Prouvaire," Feuilly said, "is an excellent idea. Finish your cake, boys, and let's go."

"_Depuis plus de quatre mille ans, nous le promettaient les prophètes, depuis plus de quatre mille ans, nous attendions cet heureux temps…_"

"Hey, how come you never said you could sing, ami?" Bahorel said, tossing some loose snow at Feuilly after failing to make it pack into a snowball.

"Never came up in conversation," Feuilly answered, stopping in the middle of the verse to turn to the squealing boy he was balancing on his shoulders. "'f he bothers you, Navet, you just throw the snow right back, all right?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Where are all you fellows going?" Eugene said, smiling wide as he stepped out into the street from the shop he had just exited. It did him good to see his friends happy.

"Oh, it's Combeferre!"

"Hi, Combeferre!"

"We're just going to see Joly and Lesgle –"

"We're taking these two petits with us, look, aren't they sweet –"

"–the funniest thing –"

"– poor little things didn't even have proper shoes – "

"– and if you want to come with us – "

Combeferre held up his hand. "Hush, amis, I can't listen to all of you at once!"

"Well, just come along with us, then, you'll hear it all over again when we get to Joly's," Courfeyrac said, laughing.

"I think I will, thank you." Eugene put his hat on and stepped up next to Feuilly to continue last week's chat on the Greek philosophers.

When they came to the door of Joly's little place, it swung open before Courfeyrac could reach for the handle and Joly stopped just short of running into them. "OH! Sorry! What are you all – " Lesgle bumped into him from behind and Joly fell forward and caught himself with a laugh.

"Sorry, cher!"

"Oh don't be, I wasn't hurt – what are you all doing here?"

"Why, we were coming to see you!" Jehan said. And so they were invited in, and the explanations began all over again.

At last when they was quite sure they had everything straightened out, and little Gavroche and Navet had been cooed over, and given a couple of warm shawls and a shiny franc each, and fed quite a bit of bread and hot soup, the little ones fell to singing a quite inventive rendition of _Adeste, Fideles_, which everyone found exceptionally amusing – Eugene, as much as he hated to admit it given the extraordinary beauty of the original Latin, included. He no sooner admitted to this sentiment than he was attacked on all sides with requests to sing it himself if he liked it so damn well!

"All right, then, I will," he found himself saying. But a knock came at the door.

"I'll get that," Joly cried, but as Feuilly was closer to the door, and not currently engaged in pouring Bahorel a drink, the latter opened it instead. To his surprise – and yet, somehow, not to his surprise at all – it was Enjolras. Everyone immediately broke out in chatter of "Hello" and "Merry Christmas" and "Just in time", but he waved them off as he wandered in and found his seat in the rather crowded room.

"It was a simple process of elimination – I was looking for you, Combeferre, but I see I've found half of Paris along with you." Was that a joke? A smile? Well...it _was_ almost Christmas, after all.

"Oh, do join us - we're singing," Prouvaire said brightly, silencing with his own smile the protests of those who'd had no intention of doing any such thing.

Enjolras raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Of course I'll join. What _are_ we singing?"

"Christmas songs, of course ."

"Of course," Bahorel said, rolling his eyes a bit.

"Don't roll your eyes like that, Dominic! They'll get _stuck_ one day!"

"Maurice, you can't be serious!"

"Does anyone else know '_Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle_'?" Enjolras enquired. Everyone did, except the little boys, whom Feuilly encouraged to hum along.

_Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle, un flambeau, courons au berceau…_

A flame for a new age.


End file.
